Source: Independent.co.ukBy Lauren EvansLike clockwork, just after dusk, they approach the fence. Eleven bull elephants, bunched together in a great ridge of grey, wait by the electrified wires. They hold their heads high, alert, until the largest bull makes its way to the wires. He curls his trunk above his head and slowly and repeatedly pulls the wires back with his tusks, carefully avoiding an electric shock, until the wires sag to the ground. In a flurry of dust, noise, pushing and pulling, the rest of the group crosses the fence and they scatter, under the cover of night, to raid crops.

This was the first time I saw elephants break a fence. I watched from the cover of a Euclea bush, some 100 metres from the fence and was stunned by the skill, strength and cooperation I saw amongst this group.

Rows of electrified wires held up by wooden posts, which stretch for kilometres are a common sight across African elephant ranges. The Kenya Wildlife Service estimates that there is already 1,500km of electrified fencing in Kenya, and that this length is growing every year.

If poaching continues at its current levels, the only way elephants will survive in the wild will be within well-funded, fortified conservation areas – the current reality for the survival of rhinos.

Unlike rhinos it is harder to confine elephants within designated spaces. With their vast requirement for space, food and water, complex societies, intelligence and taste for crops, they roam widely and cross boundaries created for them. Elephants can adapt to break even the most sophisticated of fences – resulting in a costly race with wildlife managers as they upgrade fence design.

I have been carrying out research in Laikipia, Kenya, into how and why elephants break electrified fences and what the consequences of this behaviour are for elephants and for people. I have focused on 130km of electrified fence built to divide Laikipia County into a place where elephants are tolerated (within ranches and conservancies) and a place were they are not (on small-scale farmland).

I found that elephants seek out weak points (of low voltage) close to farmland. Along fences well-maintained, elephants will continue to break it in places they have broken in the past. It is invariably bull elephants that are involved, not females. Certain individuals are responsible for the physical act of breaking. ‘Breakers’ tend to be older, larger bulls and are often followed by younger adolescent bulls that seem to associate with older males to ‘learn’ how to break fences. Breakers get through the fence in unique, individual ways to avoid an electric shock. More....

Source: AllAfrica.comBy Pius RugonzibwaThe government will instal special scanners at the ports to facilitate timely detection and confiscation of elephant tusks that are intended for export. Natural Resources and Tourism Deputy Minister Lazaro Nyalandu said that apart from the scanners, it has been decided that from early next year, all staff at the ministry, including forest and game rangers, will receive special training on how to confront poachers. Mr Nyalandu, who made a brief visit at the Selous Game Reserve, said his ministry has already contacted the ministry of transport over the ambitious plan aimed at containing massive killing of jumbos. "We have already communicated with our colleagues at the transport ministry on the plan in which the Tanzania Ports Authority (TPA) will instal the scanners, as the present ones cannot effectively detect tusks concealed in the containers," he reported. On 'Operation Tokomeza' he said the exercise has forced the ministry to revisit the code of conduct, which governs staff and rangers on how to effectively conduct future operations against poachers. The move towards initiating training on codes of conduct comes in the wake of a report tabled in the Parliament by a probe team that revealed a number of controversies and immoral acts during the implementation of the first phase of the operation. But despite the tabling of the report on 'Operation Tokomeza' by the parliamentary team, sources indicate that it has revealed many issues that needed to be crosschecked. Serious Game Reserve Chief Warden Benson Kibonde said it was important that the second phase of the operation conducts inquiries with the game reserve staff, who have a lot to share on how poaching and sabotage of natural resources can be checked. Astonishingly, he said the parliamentary probe team didn't summon any staff for inquiry on the matter. He admitted the steep decline in the number of elephants in the game reserve due to poaching, with current statistics showing there are now only 13,500 jumbos. More....

Source: ElevenMyanmar.comMyanmar will establish a Save the Elephant Foundation Myanmar in Bago Region and has plans to build a hospital to protect the elephants, according a foundation report. “We are now submitting a proposal to the Ministry of Home Affairs and Bago Regional Chief Minister to establish the Save the Elephant Foundation Myanmar. The foundation aims to combat the illegal killing of elephants living in the jungle and to save the elephants’ lives as well as to launch technical training courses with the government and private organizations,” said Khin Maung Win, chairperson of Save the Elephant Foundation Myanmar. The foundation was established in Myanmar for the first time thanks to assistance from the Save the Elephant Foundation based in Thailand. Although the wild elephants in Bago region are owned by the government and most privately owned elephants are subject to protection laws, mainly the foundation aims to carry out preventive measures against illegal killing of the elephants across the country. “We are going to build a hospital for the elephants after receiving permission from the relevant departments. Upon completion of the hospital, we will freely provide food and shelter, as well as health care services, to injured and older elephants,” the foundation’s chairperson added. In Bago Region, ivory cutting and illegal killing of elephants owned by the government, as well as the hunting of wild and privately owned elephants, has left a trail of rotten carcasses. Hunters looking for elephants are now frequenting Bago mountain ranges and forest, according to veterinary surgeon Dr. Lay Win, and executive of the Save the Elephant Foundation.

Source: Independent.co.ukBy Vidhi DoshiElephant poachers are using firearms left over from Mozambique’s civil war to slaughter elephants in neighbouring Tanzania.The wildest sound on the savannah is not the lion’s roar, but the elephant’s trumpet. When he senses a lurking poacher, the elephant screams, loud and shrill, to alert the herd and scare his enemy.

The poacher, standing only a few feet away takes aim and fires. The elephant screams again, before he collapses in a heap. One bullet will rarely kill an adult elephant, and it takes many minutes before the life drains away.

Military weapons such as AK-47s are increasingly used by poachers. Bullets from these guns weigh too little to penetrate the elephant’s thick skull so an instant death is rare. In the meantime, poachers carve out the elephant’s tusks – never sparing the valuable inches of ivory lodged firmly inside his head. A local poacher will sell a kilogram of ivory for as little as 80,000 Tanzanian shillings or £30.

Max Jenes is patrol manager for the Pams Foundation, a conservation organisation based in Tanzania. He and his team of 200 scouts who guard Tanzania’s southern border with Mozambique have witnessed the growth in weapons coming into the country over the past five years. “Since 2011, we have started to concentrate our efforts on the boundary because most of the firearms being used against wildlife are coming in from Mozambique.

“Almost every patrol we do along the Rovuma river we arrest people with firearms. We usually get nine or 10 firearms in a single patrol.”

The foundation’s most recent report from August 2013 documents the seizure of 473 firearms and 1,138 rounds of ammunition in the previous 12 months. It also found 255 elephant carcasses, 17 other wildlife carcasses and confiscated 118 ivory tusks. The foundation works alongside local communities and the government to prevent poaching and reduce human-elephant conflict in the Selous-Niassa corridor, an area around half the size of the UK.

The ivory, worth thousands of pounds can be carried in on foot, small boats or motorcycles and even on buses. There are also cases of trucks carrying ivory disguised as government vehicles that go unchecked at borders, where the guards are often complicit in the smuggling operations. Last month, an immigration official from Mozambique was caught with 16 tusks.

Ivory is smuggled both ways but mostly from Mozambique into Tanzania. From the southern border, it is transported to the capital, Dar es Salaam, before being taken abroad. More....

Source: Independent.co.ukBy Sarah Morrison Anne Nyokabi does not remember much about the day her mother was killed. They were both out walking one morning near their home when an elephant charged. He picked up her mother with his tusks and threw her to the ground. As he stepped on her repeatedly, Ms Nyokabi passed out. It took neighbours three hours to convince her to let the police take away her mother's body. Two years later, she struggles to talk about that day. In one moment, she lost her mother, her confidante and the loving grandmother to her five children.Elephants do not often kill people, but in Laikipia, Kenya, a number of people have a similar story to share. It is what happens when humans and nature's giants live side by side. More than 70 per cent of Kenya's wildlife live outside of national parks and can encroach on villages any day. About 35 people are killed by elephants each year in Kenya, according to the Born Free Foundation. Others live with the threat of losing their livelihood in one night, as hungry elephants can trample their crops and destroy a water supply."The elephant is like a wound in my mind," Ms Nyokabi said. "I can't even come out of my house when I hear an elephant is near by. Every time I see one, I remember that day. I want them to be far away from here. If they are killed, that's even better. Then they won't be able to attack me."This is why conservationists and politicians argue that if we are to halt the poaching crisis, communities in Kenya must start protecting the elephant. But until we mitigate the havoc the animals can cause, this will not happen. The situation is urgent. More than 100 African elephants are killed every day; in 2011 alone, almost 12 per cent of the population was destroyed. Kenya's elephant population has plummeted from about 167,000 to 35,000 within 40 years. Communities need to safeguard their elephants but here in Laikipia, where at least 35 have been illegally killed this year, there is one of the country's highest rates of human-wildlife conflict.David Kimita, a 45-year-old farmer and father of four, blames elephants for the breakdown of his marriage. Every time he plants crops, elephants raid his farm, leaving him with nothing for his family. "My wife depended on me for food, so when there was none, she decided to go – four years ago," he said, adding that he now sees his children only three times a year. "I can't leave as no one would buy this farm. I don't want the elephants dead, but I want them to be removed from here or restricted from coming in."Susan Wangari Thiongo, 39, who lives near by, has come to dread the nightly elephant raids that destroy her farm and says it is hard to provide for her five children. "It's a cycle and happens over and over again," she said. "We can't go anywhere else but we lose crops every year. The government needs to do something to keep the elephants from our farm." More....

Source: Newvision.co.UGBy Samuel SanyaThe UK government has put together a £10m (sh41b) fund to fight illegal wildlife trade in developing countries such as Uganda in a bid to fight corruption and improve tourism earnings.

The fund will finance activities at government level, charities and non-government organisations. Wildlife trafficking is estimated to be worth at least £12b (sh48 trillion) annually and is a constant threat to the tourism sector as it depletes wildlife in game parks.

Recently, the Uganda Revenue Authority (URA) joined a multinational move to stamp out of trafficking of elephant ivory, rhino horns, big cats, great apes and reptiles.

Funding from the DFID programme will bolster on-going efforts to protect Uganda’s wildlife by providing training and specialised equipment and by raising awareness of the impacts and economic losses caused by wildlife crime to curb illegal wildlife demand.

“Poaching devastates livelihoods and sustainable communities as well as endangering the existence of these wonderful animals,” Owen Paterson, the UK government Environment Secretary said in a statement.

“We must work together with other countries to stamp it out by stopping demand, improving enforcement and by helping communities develop sustainable economic activity,

“The wildlife in areas where this is already being done becomes a valued and protected community asset so both the wildlife and the community benefit,” he added.

Paterson noted that heavily armed poachers and organised criminal networks are destroying some of the world’s most iconic species and posing a threat to security in rural African communities.

Revenues from tourism hit sh2.7trillion last year. Many tourists trek to Uganda to view the unique landscapes, lakes, and unique mammals such as the mountain gorillas, monkeys, rhinos, African elephants, lions and chimpanzees. More....

Source: Independent.co.ukBy Kate Brooks I am a conflict photographer. At the age of 23, I packed my bags and moved to Pakistan in the weeks after 9/11 so that I could dedicate myself to documenting the war in Afghanistan and the impact of US foreign policy in the region. Over the decade that followed, I traversed the Middle East, covering the impact of war on civilian populations, and at times, military operations.In 2010, after embedding with a 'medevac' unit at Kandahar Airfield, I went to Kenya on a long-planned vacation. It was in the Maasai Mara, among the majestic beauty and grandeur of vast open spaces and magnificent creatures, that I was able to find peace and solace, and heal from the inhumanity I had witnessed: countless troops and Afghan civilians having their limbs blown off by IEDs [Improvised Explosive Devices\ and Afghan children working on farms being errantly bombed and killed by coalition forces. I left Kenya determined to photograph wildlife in the future.

Little did I know at the time, genocide was brewing across the continent. Over the past few years, the slaughter of African elephants and rhinoceros has skyrocketed to supply international markets with their tusks and horns. Some experts say 35,000 elephants are being killed per year, others believe the number is as high as 50,000.

At any rate, over 60 per cent of Africa's forest elephants have died and elephant populations are vanishing from the Earth at an alarming rate. We are at a critical moment in natural history, because Africa's elephants are dying in such an unnatural way. It's hard to fathom, but wildlife, as we know it, is ceasing to exist due to the commoditisation of wildlife, the value of rhino horn and ivory and the insatiable demand by China.

Wildlife products are used in the fashion industry, in the art world, for alternative medicine and collected for pure vanity and in the most perverse ways. Recently, the US Government crushed six tons of stockpiled illegal ivory in Denver as a statement against poaching and wildlife trafficking. The US differentiates between illegal and legal ivory, still allowing a market for the latter. Conservationists argue the legalised trade creates loopholes for the illegal trade and are pushing for a total moratorium on the ivory trade in the United States.At the National Wildlife Property Repository, I saw rows of seized tiger heads, rhino-foot ashtrays and countless tusks carved with bush scenes immortalising nature while brutally destroying its very existence by commoditising elephant parts for carvings. More....

Source: Bhpioneer.comBy Jaci Conrad PearsonDeadwood Mayor Chuck Turbiville announced that there was no need to hold a public hearing for the Shrine Circus parade portion of an item which appeared on Monday night’s agenda. There won’t be a parade. When the Shrine Circus has its day in Deadwood June 28, 2014, the Main Street parade which traditionally precludes the afternoon and evening performances to kick off the event, will not be held. “One of the big draws for the Shrine Circus parade each year was seeing the elephants parade down Main Street,” said Northern Hills Shrine Circus committee member Dave Ruth. “But circus officials have informed us that their animal handler insurance won’t cover the liability of them being paraded anymore. They don’t want the liability of having them walk down the street and be startled by a dog on the sidewalk or a loud noise from a car and having something unfortunate happening. That, consequently, has caused us to not have the parade anymore up Main Street.” Former Shrine Circus Chairman Paul Holtsclaw, who along with John Jackson instituted Deadwood’s Main Street parade in 2005, was saddened by the decision to pull up the stakes on the parade. “I’m very sad,” Holtsclaw said. “Deadwood is a parade town. People love it. People support it. It hurts that it’s gone. That was mine and Jackson’s baby.” The Northern Hills Shrine Circus began 78 years ago in Deadwood and in 1995 was moved to Belle Fourche. Holtsclaw became parade chairman in 2003 and explained that his committee felt that the parade belonged back in Deadwood. “We moved it back in 2005 and said, ‘What can we do to promote it?’,” Holtsclaw explained. “John Jackson of Belle Fourche suggested a parade. So I called up Jody Jordan, owner of the circus and asked if we could do it. He gave me a long list of reasons why not and we argued back and forth, but in the end he agreed to it. After it was over he said, ‘This was fantastic.’ I said, ‘Does that mean you’ll do it again?’ And he said, ‘yes.’ I went off the circus committee in 2011, so what happened after 2011, I don’t know.” For eight years, the elephants, circus performers, other animals, Shriners and clowns paraded down Deadwood’s historic Main Street, unaware they were making their own type of history. More....

Source: Ippmedia.comBy Aisia RweyemamuTanzania Tourism Board (TTB) has appealed to the international community to abolish the illegal ivory markets worldwide to ease the war against the extreme scaling up poaching crime.

TTB advised the stakeholders, saying: “To end the problem and save the decreased number of elephants in the world, there is a need for joint efforts” to abolish ivory markets that are generating high demand of the product.

TTB Managing Director Dr Aloyce Nzunki said: “There would be no illegal ivory trade only if the markets were closed worldwide.”

During a public lecture organized at the Institute of Diplomacy in Dar es Salaam recently, Dr Nzunki told participants that Tanzania loses 30 elephants every day as a result of poaching, and a shocking statistics of 10,000 every year.

A study conducted by Tanzania Wildlife Research Institute (TAWIRI) revealed that the number of elephants in two wildlife sanctuaries in Tanzania indicated a sharp fall by more than 40 per cent in just three years, as poachers increasingly killed the animals for their tusks.

The study conducted in the Selous Game Reserve and Mikumi National Park revealed that elephant numbers had plunged to 38,975 in 2009 from 70,406 in 2006 (TAWIRI 2010),given the estimated total elephant population in Tanzania as between 110,000 and 140,000.

It is feared that such a large drop in numbers over such a short period could lead to wiping out the country’s elephant population within seven years.

According to Monitoring Illegal Killing of Elephants(MIKE) and Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, the latest analysis of poaching data estimates that in 2012 some 15,000 elephants were illegally killed at 42 sites across 27 African countries.

“With an estimated 22,000 African elephants illegally killed in 2012, we continue to face a critical situation. Current elephant poaching in Africa remains far too high, and could soon lead to local extinctions if the present killing rates continue.

The situation is particularly acute in Central Africa, where the estimated poaching rate is twice the continental average,” said John E. Scanlon, CITES Secretary-General.

“From 2000 through 2013, the number of large-scale ivory movements has steadily grown in terms of the number of such shipments and the quantity of ivory illegally traded. More....

Source: Independent.co.ukBy Oliver PooleThe attack dog was 200 yards away, its head just visible through the tips of the long grass in which it crouched.

I had already been warned that it weighed 100lbs and once it reached full speed it would be travelling at 35mph. Most disturbing of all was that its jaw had a biting strength of 40 pounds per square inch.

“He will go for the arm,” the dog’s handler had told me. “Then, if the person struggles, its teeth will shred the whole arm down to the wrist bone.”

I had been fitted with a full body bite suit, which I was assured offered guaranteed protection. But, whatever the supposed effectiveness of the specialist clothing, the reality was that I now stood alone in the midst of an African savannah waiting for a dog to charge me – impossible not to dwell on the impact of those teeth.

I found myself in this situation as I had come to the Ol Pejeta Conservancy in the central Kenyan district of Laikipia to see the work done by the Space for Giants charity, the subject of this year’s Independent Christmas campaign.

Ol Pejeta has some of the world’s most threatened wildlife: not only elephants, but also rhinoceroses, including four of the only seven northern white rhino still in existence. That means they are constantly under attack from poachers.

To combat this, Space for Giants and its partners have had to put together their own defence force. So serious is the threat, and so ruthless the poachers, that training the teams that now patrol the conservancy is a former sergeant-major in the SAS who only recently left the regiment after 27 years’ service.

The business of protecting wildlife has now become an extremely professional and militarised affair. The rangers, all reservists in the Kenyan police force, have the latest weaponry, primarily the German-made G3 rifle.

A rapid-response team can be deployed in a helicopter at the first sign of trouble. Motion detectors and even unmanned drones are being considered to try to stop the poaching gangs, who are slaughtering 100 elephants across Africa a day and are quite willing to kill any rangers who try to stop then.

This is why anti-poaching measures make up one of the key areas to which money donated by Independent readers will be focused, along with helping establish a new East African conservancy, local community outreach, and GPS tracking to gain a better understanding of elephant movement patterns. More....

Source: Mwebantu.comThe Zambia Wildlife Authority (ZAWA) has arrested two suspects for illegally being in possession of 115.5kg of ivory, which are worth about 16 dead elephants put together. ZAWA Communications and Public Relations Officer Readith Muliyunda said in a statement in Lusaka, Ms Muliyunda said this was stocked up Ivory suspected to have been poached over a period of one year or two. One elephant is worth about K50,000. Hence the total value of elephants lost as a result of this particular vice is a whooping K800,000. “This is a great loss of revenue for the country as we seek to protect Wildlife from illegal poaching and trade in order for it to serve its broader purpose of contributing to the country’s economic and tourism sectors.” She said. She said the named suspects in this case, is a business woman aged 52 of Chaisa in Lusaka and a man who identified himself as a taxi driver, aged 37 of Lusaka West. “The duo was caught after Officers mounted a road block in Mukunku, in Mumbwa District at the weekend and a Toyota corona, registration number, ABL 2666, in which they were travelling, has since been impounded. They were four in the car and were on their way to Lusaka, but two escaped and are currently on the run. After searching the motor Vehicle, the Officers found 31 pieces of ivory weighing 115.5 Kg packed in two huge traveling bags. The woman was also found with a ZANACO ATM bank that doesn’t belong to her. The Drug Enforcement Commission (DEC) is also carrying out their own investigations in the matter. ZAWA would like to warn members of the Public that poaching and trafficking in Ivory is a very serious offence and those found wanting will be brought to book immediately.” Ms Muliyunda said. She said poaching of Elephants for Ivory has become a major concern, not only in Zambia, but Africa as a whole and government has pledged to give extra support to ZAWA to ensure that this is curbed. It is for this reason that government has put in place a moratorium on Elephant hunting in Zambia to monitor and establish its population locally. Ms Muliyunda said at the Elephant summit held in Gaborone, Botswana last month, Vice President Guy Scott said measures to combat illegal Wildlife must be taken seriously by all African states, including the government of Zambia.

Source: Wildlifenews.co.ukBy Clarissa HughesIn the wake of the Elephant Summit held in Botswana in early December where urgent measures to halt the rampant illegal ivory trade were adopted one is left asking if it is enough? Against a backdrop of ever increasing levels of poaching across Africa the Summit was called to tackle the onslaught that threatens this iconic species. Statistics released at the summit indicate that 22 000 elephants were poached in 2012, an improvement on the estimated figure of 25 000 elephants poached in 2011, however ivory seizures in 2013 signal that elephant deaths in 2013 may reach 40 000. “We have gathered to secure demonstrable commitment to undertake those measures that have been deemed urgent across range, transit and consumer countries,” said H.E Lieutenant General Seretse Khama Ian Khama, President of the Republic of Botswana, at the official opening of the Summit. Attended by high-level officials from African elephant range states, including Gabon, Kenya, Niger and Zambia, ivory transit states of Vietnam, Philippines and Malaysia and ivory destination states, including China and Thailand the meeting has been hailed a success. However, it is reported that only six of the countries represented signed the agreement at the Summit, the other representatives requiring higher approval. Of the fourteen urgent measures adopted by the meeting the most important one involves classifying wildlife trafficking as a ‘serious crime’ – a move that will unlock international law enforcement co-operation provided for under the United Nations Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime. This co-operation includes mutual legal assistance, asset seizure and forfeiture, extradition and other tools to hold criminals accountable for wildlife crime.Other measures agreed to include engaging communities living with elephants in their conservation, strengthening national laws to secure maximum wildlife crime sentences, mobilizing financial and technical resources to combat wildlife crime and reducing demand for illegal ivory. More....

Source: Wildcard.co.zaBy Sharon van WykSouth African National Parks (SANParks) has been warned that the scourge of ivory poaching currently affecting the rest of Africa is likely to hit South Africa in 2014 according to Dr Hector Magome, SANParks Managing Executive: Conservation Services.

“At CITES (Convention for The Trade in Endangered Species) held in Bangkok in March we were warned that elephant poaching is going to hit us like an avalanche as early as January next year,” says Magome. “As such, at our rhino poaching strategy meeting in September we adopted a dual strategy approach focusing on both rhino and elephant poaching in order to properly prepare.”

The recent cyanide poisoning of elephants in Zimbabwe’s Hwange National Park has done much to alert the world to out-of-control ivory poaching, which is currently killing as many as 100 elephants a day – one every 15 minutes or an estimated 32 000 elephants per annum. Closer to home, it has focused SANParks on the need to adequately protect the elephants in its care from a similar fate, given the rhino losses it is currently experiencing.

Reeling from the onslaught of rhino poaching syndicates, which has seen rhino numbers decimated in its flagship property, the Kruger National Park, SANParks has beefed up its anti-poaching unit in Kruger under the leadership of Major General Johan Jooste. But while the eyes and ears of the park are focussed on protecting rhino, are Kruger’s elephants – among them the last remaining huge tuskers – tempting targets for ivory poachers?

The northern reaches of Kruger abut Zimbabwe and Mozambique, both countries where ivory poaching is out of control. From the Limpopo River down through swathes of seemingly endless mopane to the regional ranger station at the Phalaborwa Gate, there are fewer roads than in the park’s tourist-intensive south, which makes the task of patrolling all the more difficult for Kruger’s custodians.

Crook’s Corner is positioned at the confluence of the Limpopo and Luvuvhu rivers, where South Africa, Zimbabwe and Mozambique meet. It used to be a haven for gun-runners and poachers at the turn of the 20th century and it was here that legendary ivory poacher Cecil Barnard took refuge from the authorities in the 1920s. Some believe that this is where modern ivory poachers will start targeting the huge elephant herds that often congregate in this part of the Kruger Park, as well as along the open border with Mozambique that has proved so problematic in the battle against rhino poaching. “Our Mozambican counterparts are apparently losing three elephants a day to poachers at the moment,” says Magome, acknowledging that the actual losses could be much higher. More....

Source: Standard.co.ukBy Louise Jury Tracey Emin’s soft spot for animals is usually demonstrated in her art with touching depictions of her elderly cat Docket or pictures of tiny birds. But the Margate-born artist chose a rather bigger animal with her generous donation to the Christmas appeal by the Standard’s sister papers, The Independent, i and Independent on Sunday. Emin, 50, has given a drawing of two elephants that will be sold in a special late addition to the auction which has already raised thousands of pounds.Emin said: “I have seen baby elephants, mother elephants, herds of elephants, and even though they are incredibly short-sighted they have a majestic beauty that is inexplicable to mankind.” She joins artists including Thomas Heatherwick, Damien Hirst and the Chapman brothers, who have given pieces to be sold to raise funds for rangers to protect the creatures from poachers operating on an industrial scale, with militia machine-gunning entire herds from helicopters. Their tusks are sold to fund war and terrorism. Space for Giants, the charity chosen for our support, is helping to create sanctuaries where elephants will be safe.The campaign has also received the backing of Prince William, who said: “I have been fortunate to see these incredible, beautiful yet touchingly vulnerable animals up close, and I am absolutely delighted that The Independent and the Evening Standard are shining a much-needed spotlight on this issue.”Meanwhile, the Government has pledged a crackdown on the trade in illegal products such as elephant ivory and rhino horn with a £10 million fund.

Source: Independent.co.ukBy Michael McCarthySaving elephants, as followers of The Independent’s Christmas Appeal will know, seems to be a harder and harder task as the killing in Africa gets more difficult to control. But there is one particular way forward which offers hope, and which at first may seem surprising, and that is through saving sharks.

A giant vegetarian land mammal wouldn’t at first sight seem to have much in common with a deep-sea predator. But elephants and sharks share a cruel curiosity of fate: they both have bodily protuberances which humans find so valuable they will kill both sets of creatures to get them.

With elephants, or course, it’s their ivory tusks, now in booming demand especially among the rising middle class of China. With sharks, it’s their fins, an essential ingredient in what has long been another fad of wealthy Chinese: shark’s fin soup.

While elephants are killed in their thousands, sharks are killed in their millions for the soup. The slaughter is having a drastic effect on shark populations, with 32 per cent of deep-sea species threatened with extinction.

“Shark finning” is a pitiless form of fishing involving cutting off the fins while the fish are still alive and then throwing them back into the sea. The reason is a pair of shark fins can sell in Asia for $700 a kilo – and the less valuable shark bodies would be an encumbrance on a fisherman’s boat.

But in July this year the European Union brought in a regulation ending the practice, and in future all EU boats will have to land sharks with their fins still attached.

Ali Hood, of Britain’s Shark Trust, sees this as a major step forward, not least because the EU is a big player in the shark market, with Spain alone having the third-biggest shark catch in the world, and also because the move will give the EU the moral authority to persuade other nations to do the same. But the biggest obstacle to lessening the global shark slaughter is the demand from China.

In 2006, the inventive conservation body WildAid, based in San Francisco and headed by British-born Peter Knights, began a campaign to make the Chinese public realise that shark’s fin soup represents a big conservation problem.

The campaign took off when in 2009 China’s best-known sports star, basketball player Yao Ming, appeared in a film saying he would no longer eat the soup and used the slogan “Mei yu mai mai, jiu mei yu sha hai”, meaning “When the buying stops, the killing can too.” More....

Source: Independent.co.ukBy Tom BawdenThe UK Government has vowed to clamp down on the soaring trade in illegal wildlife products such as rhino horn and elephant ivory, pledging £10m to fight a crime offering “low risk and high rewards”.

Illicit trade in wildlife has exploded into a $19bn (£11.6bn) global criminal enterprise, driven by newly-rich Asian consumers who aspire to a luxury lifestyle through status symbols such as ivory goods, as well as exotic pets, such as monkeys, and meats, such as anteater.

The vacuum of demand has been filled by organised criminals who can make a fortune with relatively little risk of conviction and who are threatening government stability and national security in some of the worst-hit areas in Africa, pressure groups say.

A combination of high prices, weak laws, poor enforcement and relatively short sentences, has made poaching far more attractive to criminals, they say.

The Government clampdown will see the Department for International Development (DFID) and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) join forces for the first time.

Owen Paterson, the Environment Secretary, said: “Poaching devastates livelihoods and sustainable communities as well as endangering the existence of these wonderful animals. We must work together with other countries to stamp it out by stopping demand, improving enforcement and by helping communities develop sustainable economic activity.”

International Development Secretary Justine Greening said: “By working with Defra to tackle the illegal wildlife trade we are helping to improve the economic opportunities of the poorest people whose livelihoods depend on natural resources. This fund will also help stop corruption fuelled by the illegal trade.”

Funding will be awarded to support action in developing countries that reduces the “opportunity and incentive” to poach. It will also be used to provide training and equipment to help law enforcement. Some of the budget will fund a campaign to raise awareness of the impact of wildlife crime, which the World Wide Fund for Nature says appears to fund terrorist cells in unstable African countries, with the criminals often using the same networks as other illegal trades, such as drug trafficking.

The £10m fund is being made available as David Cameron prepares to host in London the highest-level global summit to date on combating illegal wildlife trade. The summit in February aims to produce an unprecedented political commitment and an action plan.

Source: Independent.co.ukBy Oliver PooleThe Duke of Cambridge yesterday called on the world to halt Africa's "poaching epidemic" after he joined Labour leader Ed Miliband in becoming the latest public figures to back The Independent on Sunday's Christmas appeal.

The campaign, with support from our sister newspapers The Independent, the i paper and the Evening Standard, is raising funds to combat the illeg trade presently killing around 100 elephants a day.

Prince William recently established United for Wildlife, an alliance of seven leading conservation bodies, to try to end poaching. He has previously warned that the "catastrophe" facing rhinos and other species could make them extinct within our lifetime.

"The poaching of rhino and elephants on an industrial scale is one of the great conservation crises of the 21st century," he told The Independent on Sunday. "The rate at which we are losing these animals is staggering and heartbreaking.

"Tackling species conservation is crucial, not only because of the plain and simple wrong that is being done, but, more than this, because it symbolises the challenges between us and the natural world. If we cannot halt this poaching epidemic, driven in large part by ignorance and greed, how will we ever be able to tackle more complex conservation issues?"

The Prince, who is also patron of the conservation charity Tusk, continued: "The world of conservation needs our support. Though these issues often seem remote, they touch each of us in one form or another, now and in the future. But, while the scale of the problem is massive, I am hugely heartened by the gathering efforts of governments and people across the world to help tackle it.

"I have been fortunate to see these incredible, beautiful yet touchingly vulnerable animals up close, and I am absolutely delighted that The Independent and the Evening Standard are shining a much-needed spotlight on this issue."

Mr Miliband also gave his "whole-hearted" support to The IoS campaign, saying he was particularly concerned how "the illegal trade in ivory funds war and terrorism".

Al-Shabaab, the Somalia extremists who carried out the massacre in Nairobi's Westgate mall, has known links to ivory poaching, as does Joseph Kony's Lord's Resistance Army and Janjaweed, the militia behind the genocide in Darfur.Our campaign is in support of the charity Space for Giants, which provides anti-poaching rangers and is developing a new conservancy in East Africa. More....

Source: Independent.co.ukBy Sarah MorrisonJoseph Maina had never seen an elephant up close before. The first time he looked into the eyes of one of Africa's giants, he was hacking off its tusks with an axe. The elephant was dead and he was ripping it apart to obtain ivory. He had been paid 500 Kenyan shillings, or a little over £3.50 for the work – twice his normal daily income.The 47-year-old casual worker is now in a medium security prison. Unlike the majority of poachers who kill African elephants and leave them to rot in the bush, he was arrested the next day. The father of six is serving four and a half years inside Naivasha Prison. He wears a black and white striped uniform and sleeps with up to 80 other convicts on mattresses on the floor. He is one of around 800 inmates. He never thought he would end up here.

Statistically, he is unlucky. The poaching epidemic is now an internationally recognised crisis. More than 100 African elephants are killed every day and in 2011 alone, almost 12 per cent of the population was destroyed. But despite the fact that Kenya's elephant population has plummeted from around 167,000 to 35,000 in less than four decades, prosecution rates for wildlife crimes are shockingly low.

Around 2,000 people in Kenya are arrested every year for offences linked to poaching and trafficking, according to a study by conservation charity WildlifeDirect, which analysed records from around 15 courts in the country. But only 10 per cent of those arrested ended up in court (200) where more than half pleaded guilty. Despite this, only one in 20 received a jail sentence.

At Makadara court – which handles those arrested at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport – less than 7 per cent of people caught with ivory or rhino horn were put behind bars. Paula Kahumbu, who carried out the research, said the statistics show a clear pattern: "Even though the conviction rate is high, very few go to prison."

As for Maina, from Nyandarua County, he said very few poachers know killing an elephant can lead to jail. "I am a casual worker. I do any type of business to raise money for my children. We don't have the money to pay their school fees. Men asked me to help remove ivory from an elephant. It was already dead and I was to get paid for the job. I had never really thought about elephants – people in my community think they are destructive. They destroy crops and can be dangerous."

He said the men poisoned the elephants by leaving contaminated food, often salt and ash mixed together, at known feeding areas. The lethal mixture gives the elephants diarrhoea and eventually kills them. The other poachers had promised him a cut of the ivory sale – he hoped it would be around 10,000 Kenyan shillings, or just over £70. "That day I saw an elephant for the first time up close. I felt something in my heart. I really felt for it. I still have the vision of that dead elephant in my mind. The other men were part of an organised group, who also sell game meat. Those involved in the actual poaching are rarely arrested. Perhaps if they knew they could end up in prison, it might deter them." More....

When I was a child, I was haunted by the pictures I would see on tv and in books of elephants butchered for their tusks, with their poor grief-stricken youngsters lying next to their parents bodies. But after a while things got better - there was a ban on the despicable ivory trade in 1989 and things improved. The intelligent beautiful elephant populations started to recover. But in the past few years the African elephant has been targeted like never before. There is now urgent action needed. In some areas, elephant populations have plummeted by a staggering 80 per cent in six years. Some believe that if the slaughter continues at its current rate elephants could be wiped off the face of the earth within 10 years. Whole herds are gunned down from helicopters by armed militia. Ivory trinkets are sold to fund terrorist activities, or they are kept under lock and key in the hope that the scarcer the beasts become, the more expensive the trinkets will get. Earlier this month, David Cameron gave his backing to the excellent campaign run by the Independent newspaper. The Chinese government are particularly under pressure because demand for ivory in China has fuelled much of the poaching. Environment secretary, Owen Paterson told the Independent: Mr Paterson, who is leading government efforts to tackle the ivory trade, added that both supply and demand needed to be addressed. He said: “We are losing a rhino every 11 hours and we are losing an elephant every 15 minutes – because ivory is worth $2,000 a kilo. “There is absolutely no doubt about it – the value is enormous. For ivory alone the value of crime is around £10bn. So there is huge interest in solving this problem. “And it would be a huge indictment if we don’t. We are organising a summit in February and we’ve got people coming from right across the world. And thanks to our meetings this week, the Chinese have also agreed to attend.” Please please donate to the campaign, which you can do by visiting the Independent’s website below, which also carries a series of fascinating, and upsetting articles and films, most of which I opted not to watch.

Source: TimesofIndia.Indiatimes.comBy Sajimon P.S.The Heritage Animal Task Force (HATF), a forum of animal lovers, has demanded the state government to ensure elephants are not harassed during the temple festival season.

The forum raised the demand after it was found that the district committee to ensure the protection of pachyderms has been defunct.

The high court of Kerala, on March 16, 2008, had ordered the setting up of district committees to ensure the safety of elephants. The court's order was based on a HATF petition.

"It (the committee) is a statutory body with district collector and divisional forest officer as chairman and the convenor, respectively. As per the court order, the state government also issued guidelines regarding the parading of elephants during temple festivals," said V K Venkitachalam, general secretary of HATF.

The government has mandated that festival committees, wishing to parade elephants, should get permission from authorities concerned at least 72 hours before the event. Also, there should a space of four meters between two elephants.

The government has also restricted the number of elephants that could be paraded at a time.

Additionally, it has also been mandated that each elephant should be provided 250kg of food and 500 litres of water a day, besides adequately resting the animals.

The district committees were to ensure that the guidelines were met.

According to district assistant forest conservator S Sreekumar, his department had convened a meeting of elephant owners, temple authorities and mahouts before the commencement of the temple festival season.

"We have issued guidelines to all those who attended the meeting. However, we are unable to conduct inspections properly owing to the shortage of staff and vehicles. There are only eight employees and one out-dated jeep. There are hundreds of temples in Alappuzha,'' he said.

Additional district magistrate K P Thampi said permission to parade elephants was given only after ensuring the safety of elephants. "However, we are now not conducting any checking as no violations have been found till date in the temples," he said.

Kenya is planning to lobby the African Union to enhance its war against the poaching menace as the continent’s wildlife heritage is under constant threat from human activities, the country’s wildlife authority said on Monday. “We will therefore lobby with the AU to include the poaching menace in its agenda as a way of fighting wildlife destruction in the continent,” Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) Director William Kiprono said during celebrations to honor Kenya’s fallen wildlife conservation heroes.Since the formation of KWS, the force has lost 61 rangers to poachers. Earlier this year, 13 Kenyan wildlife rangers were honored by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild fauna and Flora. “The advocacy will also be escalated to the international arena by targeting countries where the consumption of wildlife products is rampant,” he said.Kenya is among countries in Africa where poaching is rampant despite the vice having been outlawed in the country in 1977.Poachers target especially rhinos and elephants for their tusks and skins, which fetch a lot of money in the black market particularly in Asia.Kiprono said the conservation challenge will never diminish, noting that with the increase in human population, high pricing of wildlife trophies such as the rhino horn and elephant tusks in the black market, pressure on land use, diminishing space for wildlife, climate change, encroachment by invasive species, the destruction of wildlife habitats, and the challenges were expected to increase tremendously.He said to tackle these challenges effectively called for additional funding and collaboration with other agencies.Additional rangers had been recruited to beef up security while staff efficiency had been improved through purchase of appropriate tools such as aircrafts, vehicles and firearms, he said. As part of the anti-poaching campaign, awareness and education materials would be made available in the common languages of the consuming countries, he added. “Our commitment to protect all great species and places on earth for humanity remains intact,” he said. The director said that Kenya’s resolve to fight wildlife crime is unbowed. “Let me warn those behind wildlife criminal activities that cost our officers lives, that their days are numbered,” he said.The east African nation has already created a multi agency anti- poaching crack unit, which has been deployed in the poaching hotspots. The Treasury has already allocated 2.31 million U.S. dollars for the operations of the unit.More....

Source: Independent.co.ukBy Elton JohnI have been travelling to Africa for many years to support the work conducted by the Elton John Aids Foundation, the charity I first established in 1992 to reduce the incidence of HIV/Aids worldwide.

While there, I have seen inspirational examples of human courage and fortitude, as we have helped fund projects across the continent to alleviate the impact of HIV and Aids and there have been wonderful examples of progress achieved.

Only this month the foundation, with the pharmaceutical company Mylan, pledged to donate $1m for the elimination of mother-to-child transmission of HIV in Nigeria. It will provide women who have tested HIV-positive with treatment so as to be able to prevent their children being born with the virus.

My time in Africa, however, allowed me more than just to witness the important work the foundation undertakes. It also enabled me to grow to understand, and fall in love with, the natural splendour which helps make the continent so very special.

I regularly visit to wallow in the beauty of the landscape and to witness the animals that live there in their natural habitat. My favourite spot is in the shadow of the Drakensberg Mountains in Southern Africa, which I try to visit most years. That spot is how I can only imagine a Garden of Eden would be.

In the winter months you can see elephants, lions, buffalo, leopards and all the other great African fauna set against the dry, golden-brown winter bush. In the summer, the lush green foliage also brings with it migrant birds and the wonder of newborn animals.

There is little as magical as waiting in the bush as dawn rises and seeing the landscape take shape as the newly rising sun illuminates the day and reveals the elephant grazing, impalas bouncing between the trees and – when fortunate – a lion or other big cat gearing itself up for the hunt.What I witnessed there and in other parts of Africa helped inspire me when I was asked to contribute songs to The Lion King. I wanted to try to capture the majesty of the African scenery and the animals that live within it so that people could feel what I do when I witness it first-hand, and therefore appreciate its emotional impact too. More....

Source: Politics.co.ukPress ReleaseMore than 41 tonnes of elephant ivory have been seized in 2013, the largest quantity in 25 years. However, the fact that up to 50,000 elephants a year are now being slaughtered for their ivory seems to have shocked world leaders out of their ennui and into action to halt poaching and ivory trafficking. “Ivory poaching has grown way out of control in recent years, with large scale seizures (those weighing more than 800 kgs) becoming the norm rather than the exception,” said Kelvin Alie, Director of Wildlife Trade for IFAW (International Fund for Animal Welfare). “So far this year we have seen 18 large scale seizures with a total of 41.5 tonnes of ivory reported confiscated, significantly up on 2011 when there were 14 large seizures measuring an estimated 24.3 tonnes.” Alie said public demand for action to stop the slaughter and killing of elephants had pressured world leaders into taking action to save elephants. “Wildlife crime ranks among the most serious, dangerous and damaging of international crimes along with human trafficking, drug running and illegal arms sales,” he said. “In the past months we’ve seen an encouraging increase in the numbers of seizures of ivory and more international cooperation to act for elephants than ever before,” he said. “Unfortunately these successes highlight the extent of the problem – up to 50,000 elephants a year are being killed for their ivory. If we are to save elephants we need to address every link in the ivory chain. That means stopping the killing, stopping the trafficking and stopping the demand.” Earlier this month delegates to the IUCN African Elephant Summit in Botswana committed to classifying wildlife trafficking as a ‘serious crime’. This unlocks international law enforcement opportunities that will make life that much harder for criminals. “From a public awareness point of view the destruction of a stockpile of six tonnes of illegal ivory by the United States, France’s announcement that it will soon destroy three tonnes of ivory, and the UK Government’s announcement that London is to host an international summit on illegal wildlife crime, send a powerful message to criminals that people are tired of elephants being killed for ivory that no one needs,” said Robbie Marsland, UK Director of IFAW. More....

Source: WCS.orgPress ReleaseThe New York State Assembly Standing Committee on Environmental Conservation announced a public hearing on ways to improve the effectiveness of the state’s laws and regulations protecting endangered species and restricting the sales of ivory.The hearing will take place on Thursday, January 16 at 11 a.m. at the Assembly Hearing Room, 250 Broadway, Room 1923, 19th Floor, in Manhattan. Despite the existing legal protections, New York has become one of the leading destinations in the United States for illegal ivory. In 2012, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, in conjunction with the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, seized more than $2 million worth of elephant ivory in New York City.The Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) estimates that 96 elephants are killed each day in Africa, translating into one elephant death every fifteen minutes and a 76 percent population decline since 2002. Assemblyman Robert K. Sweeney, Chair of the New York State Assembly Standing Committee on Environmental Conservation said, “Elephants are a social, smart and peaceful animal whose existence has special protections under the law. Poachers have been illegally killing African elephants for years, bringing them to the brink of extinction. It's disturbing that New York has become one of the main points of entry for the illegal ivory trade. Not only does this illegal market cause further destruction to an endangered species, but some of the proceeds of the trade go to fund terrorism. I have called this hearing to learn how New York State can help put a stop to these reprehensible actions.”John Calvelli, WCS Executive Vice President for Public Affairs, said, “The New York seizure is evidence of a disturbing fact: there is a direct link between the illegal ivory trade in New York State and the slaughter of elephants in Africa. We are extremely grateful that the New York State Assembly Standing Committee on Environmental Conservation, under the leadership of Chairman Sweeney, is taking the illegal ivory trade in New York so seriously.”Elephants are killed primarily for their ivory tusks which are used predominantly in carved art and jewelry. Ivory sales are regulated by a complex web of international, federal and state laws and treaties. In New York, ivory sales are regulated pursuant to Environmental Conservation Law §11-0535 which is based in part on the inclusion of elephants on the federal endangered species list in the 1970’s. More....

Source: Annamiticus.comBy Rhishja Cota-LarsonIn 2013, horrifying headlines about the voiceless victims of wildlife trafficking captured public attention around the world. Has a turning point in the war on wildlife crime finally arrived? Make no mistake: This is not a fight that will one day be “won” so we can all go home. Rather, it is an ongoing state of vigilance for law enforcement, activists, NGOs, environmental journalists and concerned citizens. Nevertheless, we need to recognize — and celebrate — our progress. I’ve been writing about wildlife trafficking for nearly five years and I think there is something different about 2013. World leaders have publicly committed to tackling the illegal wildlife trade and there seems to be a consensus that this scourge is nothing less than transnational organized crime which — and it should be dealt with accordingly. Wildlife trafficking breeds corruption in governments and encourages greed in the private sector. It threatens regional security and funds global terrorism. So, what happened in 2013? Experts agree that demand for wildlife products must be reduced. It can be said that from almost every corner of the world, demand reduction was a unifying battle cry for 2013. John E. Scanlon, Secretary-General, Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), writes that CoP16 was a “watershed moment” for combating wildlife crime. “In addition to addressing enforcement, there was a clear recognition by CITES Parties that we need to reduce demand for illegal and untraceable products and to enhance overall public awareness of the severe damage caused by unregulated and illegal trade.” The Clinton Global Initiative launched “Partnership to Save Africa’s Elephants”, a coalition of non-governmental organizations brought together to “directly target the chief drivers” of ivory trafficking. This commitment takes a triple pronged approach by dedicating funding to: “stop the killing,” “stop the trafficking,” and “stop the demand.” A post on the ARREST (Asia’s Regional Response to Endangered Species Trafficking) blog notes that as part of NGO Education for Nature-Vietnam’s demand reduction campaign, banners discouraging consumption of wildlife were hung at nearly 30 markets in major Vietnamese cities such as Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh and Da Nang. More....